applied to you, the word geek sounds ludicrous, but you’re not the only computer geek around, you know.”
Mike raised his hands. “Be my guest. Get a geek to go digging. But if you’re found out, how are you going to explain your interest in this seemingly law-abiding citizen?”
“A bribed hacker won’t care what my interest is.”
“A bribed hacker won’t blink over taking your money, then—”
“Stabbing you in the back with it,” Gif chimed in.
“Your hacker would get the man in South Carolina on the phone and tell him there’s a guy in far-off Lexington, Kentucky, who’s spying on him.”
Gif picked up. “For more coin than you’re paying him, the hacker would sell you out.”
“Then it would be you, Special Agent Easton,” Mike continued, jabbing a stubby index finger at him, “who would be spied on, caught committing God knows how many violations and crimes, civil and criminal, and that would squash this and any future chance you might have to finally nail this son of a bitch, which has been your main mission in life.” He wheezed a deep breath. “Tell us we’re wrong.”
Drex sat down on the end of the bed, propped his forearms on his thighs, and dropped his head forward. After a moment, he looked up. “Okay. No hacker. I’ll moderate my approach. Satisfied?”
The other two exchanged a look. Gif said, “Exercise a little caution, some discretion.”
“Don’t go off half-cocked,” Mike said.
Gif added, “That’s all we’re saying.”
Drex placed his hand over his heart. “I’ll be cautious, discreet, and fully cocked. Okay?”
Neither approved of that last bit, and they didn’t look wholly convinced of his sincerity, but Mike said, “Okay. Next question?”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
“Only the one on his driver’s license.”
“And?”
“Looks nothing like he did the last time he surfaced.”
“Key West,” Gif reminded them, although they didn’t need reminding.
“You’d never know it’s the same man,” Mike said. “Which means I could be dead wrong about this fella.”
“If he is,” Gif said, “but you rush in hell-bent and create havoc in this guy’s life, you’ll land yourself in a world of hurt. Especially if Rudkowski were to get wind of it.”
“Rudkowski can go fuck himself.”
“Rumor is, he’s tried, but can’t quite figure out how to go about it.”
Gif’s quip got a rare snort of humor out of Mike and a reluctant grin from Drex. Gif was good at defusing a tense situation. Of average height and weight, with thinning brown hair, and not a single feature that was distinguishing, Gif’s averageness was his camouflage. He could observe others unnoticed and unremembered, which made him a valuable asset to the team. He was also a reliable predictor of human behavior, as he’d just demonstrated.
Drex’s impulse had been to rush in hell-bent and create havoc.
Needing a moment to collect his thoughts, he motioned toward the minibar. “Help yourselves.” He stood up and began pacing in the limited space between the bed and the window.
Mike and Gif made their selections and popped the tops off soda cans. Mike complained that he needed a crowbar to get the lid off the jar of mixed nuts. Gif offered to give it a try. Mike scoffed at that and called him a weakling.
Drex tuned out their bickering and focused his thoughts on his quarry, a man he first knew as Weston Graham, although that could be just another of his many aliases. Having eluded the authorities for decades, he could have turned up enjoying a Frosty at the Wendy’s across the freeway or burning incense in a monastery in the Himalayas, and neither would have surprised Drex.
He was a chameleon, exceptionally good at altering his appearance and adapting to his environment. Among the ones in which he’d lived comfortably and without arousing suspicion were a penthouse on Chicago’s Gold Coast, a horse ranch outside of Santa Barbara, and a yacht moored in Key West. Other locales that he had oozed his way through—those that Drex knew of—weren’t that ritzy. They hadn’t had to be. All had been extremely profitable for him.
When his cohorts had resettled, Drex asked, “What put you onto the guy in South Carolina?”
“I run my trot lines continually, but what finally tipped me?” Mike said around a burp. “An online dating service. Figuring he vets his victims somehow, I troll those services periodically just to see if something clicks. Day before yesterday, I came across a profile that did. The wording of it jostled my memory. Felt like I’d read it before.